I'm a Yari Road based writer who writes for a living using non living things. Follow me on Twitter (@devaiahPB), Facebook (facebook.com/devayeah), Instagram (devayeah) and Snapchat (devayeah). But don't follow me back home because I'll find that very creepy.

Month: May 2016

Don’t know how many of you have noticed this disturbing trend, but the IPL is becoming too much about cricket. Virat’s relationship with his bat is making more noise than his relationship with, well, Gautam Gambhir. People have been mumbling about Gayle’s form being as unpredictable as the ending of the previous sentence. Everyone is going on and on about Kings Eleven Punjab not getting its team composition right. (Well, that’s actually not true. Nobody talks about Kings XI Punjab anymore. Not even Preity Zinta.)

Lalit Modi put his blood, sweat and Shashi Tharoor’s tears into creating this league for fans to talk about Anushka; not about Virat’s centuries. The league was designed for players to slap each other. For team owners to slap security guards. For Sreesanth’s employment. For Sreesanth’s towel’s employment.

When Lalit Modi and gang founded the IPL, the mission statement was:

“The IPL will strive to be a league where rich people will spend a ton of money to buy teams, and then they’ll spend a lot more money to buy the best players in the world for these teams, and then they will pay these players a lot more money to, ah, perform poorly.”

The first few editions saw the mission statement being followed to the T. It made the IPL, IPL. The 2013 edition of the IPL saw match fixing charges being framed against Srinivasan. Obviously, he’s into fixing. The man runs a cement company. In the first edition, Harbhajan Singh, a Deputy Superintendent of Police in Punjab, slapped a criminal five years before the crime could be committed. In 2011, the Saharas bought a team. And then, shut it down. Later on, Raj Kundra’s team got disqualified. Srinivasan’s team got disqualified. (Let’s spare a thought for Vijay Mallya, right now. The dude was so broke that he didn’t even have enough cash to get involved in a match fixing scandal.) It was all going right for the IPL.

Until this year.

The only cricket related controversy to have popped up during this IPL was Manoj Prabhakar wanting to sue the makers of ‘Azhar’ for saying he took money to underperform. IPL, your shit is really fucked up if Manoj Prabhakar beat you to a controversy. Yes, Manoj Prabhakar. The man who was the Ajit Agarkar of the 90s. Manoj Prabhakar and Ajit Agarkar were both considered all rounders only because they couldn’t bat, bowl or field properly. Come to think of it, if Prabhakar goes to court and wins the case, he will make some money. But if he loses the case, it’ll mean he’s already made his money. Sweet deal.

It’s high time IPL got its shit together. It needs to do something. Bring back those good ol’ fashioned fixed matches. Maybe get Azharuddin involved if need be. Renowned captain, fixer and has had a Bollywood actress for a wife (that too, Salman’s ex). Doesn’t get more IPL than that.

It’s also time for the players to pull up their socks. They need to do some drugs off the field or on the field or on the umpire.

Somebody’s gotta do something.

Come on, Delhi. You still have a match or two left. Live up to your cliché. Next time, the umpire declares one of your batters out leg before wicket, don’t walk back to the pavilion. Walk to the umpire, take out a gun and hold it to his head and ask, “Janta hain mera baap kaun hain?”

The IPL desperately needs a hero. Somebody who will rise to the occasion. Somebody who will rise above the game to save it. Before cricket entirely destroys it.

All these years, Bangalore has behaved like a typical Bangalorean. Friendly, naive and nice. But, nice things never happen to nice guys.

When the modern working class complained, “Argh. It’s 23 deg. So damn hot and uncomfortable to sit in this cubicle while writing code to help my client in the States cut down on his Carbon footprint”, Bangalore took it to heart. And so he allowed people to build massive tech parks on its lakes with centrally air conditioned buildings only to make sure the temperature could always be 22.5 degrees inside the building. Because hey, we all know how painful it is to be subjected to 23 deg.

When the politician complained, “Look at Bihar, UP. There’s no way we can make money like that in this annoying place”, Bangalore felt bad for him. So Bangalore gave him all of its green cover at throwaway prices so he could throw it away at exorbitant prices to the real estate mafia, who then sold it at 100x exorbitant prices to, well, Bangaloreans.

When Narayan Murthy complained “Terrible infrastructure. My company’s productivity is going down. The 5 lac people I’ve brought in from other states to make me richer, aren’t able to reach my slog-hole on time. Is this what you call hospitality, Bangalore?” Bangalore panicked. “Did I do something wrong? This must be really my fault.” So Bangalore gave away a road to Murthy and told him to build a fly over on it to ensure his employees directly land into their office cubicles, so he could get richer; faster. The construction of this fly over drew the ire of the locals as it jeopardised traffic for a few years. But Bangalore was happy taking the blame as long as Murthy could sleep peacefully at night while his code labourers reached office on time in the mornings.

When Bangaloreans cribbed “I’m working 18 hours a day trying to get Murthy and others richer, I have no place to chill”, Bangalore felt their pain. So Bangalore gave away a few more of its trees and lakes and modesty for malls and McDonald’s. (Though we’ve remained good friends, Bangalore and I, I let him know he pushed it too far with McDonald’s. More Corner Houses could’ve been a better plan, though.)

When Bangaloreans cribbed “Man. I’m so stressed making a ton of money at work, but I can’t even party the night out beyond 11.30,” Bangalore listened. And then replied, “Shut the f**k up.”

Come on, even nice guys lose it sometimes.

Now when Bangaloreans are cribbing, “Man, this city is going to be unlivable in the next 5 years”, Bangalore is weeping. Not because he’s upset with people treating him like shit. He’s upset with Himself. He’s wondering if he didn’t do enough. If he didn’t sacrifice enough lakes. Didn’t uproot enough trees. He feels like he has let others down. He feels he is to be blamed.

Because nice guys are like that. Nice guys don’t always finish last, sometimes they are just finished.

Prince William be like, “Damn, this is a little confusing. My family unlawfully took away their land and made them our slaves for a couple hundred years. We also took away their rights, spices and Kohinoor. And almost got Bhuvan to pay dugna Lagaan. But still, when I come over, they fight tooth and nail to be on the guest list to attend my party, and are desperate as hell for a picture with me which gets uploaded under the hash tag “‪#‎proud‬“. Bad move letting go of this country. Screw you, Gandhi (oh, and yeah, thank you white skin).”

I can’t withdraw more than 20,000 rupees a day from my account. He withdrew 215 Cr and left the country.

The minimum account balance I need to maintain is 0. But he can maintain a minimum balance of Rs -1500 Cr.

I work quite hard but my last birthday party was thrown by a friend on his brother-in-law’s terrace; I spent 200 bucks on cab. When he turned 60 this year he burnt 90 Cr on his birthday party on a private island in Goa, and flew down Enrique.

I pay my modest EMI on time fearing phone calls and letters from the bank. He owes Rs 7000 Cr to 17 banks and nobody knows on which number he’s available or where to send the damned letters.

If I owed the amount of money he owed, I would have taken a bus or hitched a drive for free (to save whatever little I have left) to escape my debtors. But he took a chartered jet and flew to a private estate near London.

Yet, everybody else is too busy calling him a huge failure. They’re cracking bankruptcy jokes, poor man jokes, fat man jokes and absconder jokes on him. Let me break this to all of you. The joke, is actually on you guys. If you ask me, he’s not a failure; he’s the biggest f**king success story today.